


Unrequited

by taoroo



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bittersweet, Confessions, Forever Alone, Mostly Sadness, Multi, Unrequited Love, catharsis and comfort, sap, some porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 21:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9404291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taoroo/pseuds/taoroo
Summary: On the eve of the final battle, the Inquisitor decides to confess their love.A collection of one-shots for all those poor Quizzies who just weren't their crush's type.





	1. Chapter 1

"Sera, you have a minute?"

She turned to me, cheeky smile just that bit strained with the thought of tomorrow.

"Sure Quizzy, what's up?"

I entered her room. The tavern below was busy, louder than usual with the people who filled it dealing with their dread in the best way they knew. I was doing the same, in _my_ own way.

"I need to tell you something, before tomorrow," I began, dry tongue brushing over chewed lips.

Sera's smile fades.

"You're all serious," she says suspiciously. "Don't like it when you do that."

"It's nothing terrible," I rush to reassure, but then hesitate, a nervous chuckle following. "Well, you might think so, given your idea of... parts."

She cocks a brow but does not comment.

"I know you're not interested," I start, the words practiced yet still fumbling. "You've been clear, always so honest. But I have to tell you, before tomorrow..." a pause for breath and then as she goes to speak I override her, knowing the negative that she's forming.

"I like you. A lot. A hell of a damn lot actually. If things were different, if _I_ were different, I hope that might have meant something more. Something pretty great. But I know you don't feel the same, and it's shit to say all this, knowing that, but I fucking love you, alright? So there."

She stares at me and I stare stubbornly back. My fists are clenched around sweating palms, but my heart is steady. It does a lot for a confession to know rejection is, and could only ever be, the answer.

She snorts, unladylike and sweet.

"That was a lot of swears, mister posh-jobs," she chortles, thumping me hard on the arm. "Were they all for me?"

"Every one," I grin, relief a sigh on my tongue.

"Does that mean I have to say my bit in nobbeese?" she says and then straightens formally, a flourished hand to her breast.

"I doth solemnly declare that I loveth thee also, thou great big twit."

We collapse into laughter and she nimbles in for a rib-crushing hug. I hug back, picking her up and spinning her easily. When I let her down she's still laughing, but like something's just tickled her, so I cock my head inquiringly.

"Parts..." she sniggers, nose wrinkling, " _EW_."

Grinning with affection I step in to her, clasping the back of her head with a gentle hand.

"Quite," I say and place a light kiss upon her messy fringe.

 

oOo

 

Dorian is standing on the parapet, looking out at the stars. His back is straight, face fresh and dress immaculate despite the late hour. Moonlight deepens the contours of his mouth, his nose, his sad but confident eyes.

I stand beside him, my hands upon the wall, and curse the coming dawn.

"We've come a long way," he says quietly.

I nod, my tongue thick in my mouth.

"I'm going back to Tevinter when we're done here," he says, still fixed on the skies.

I understood. After fixing so many of my own land's problems I saw what Dorian sought for his own people. Noble, beautiful soul.

"What about Bull?"

Dorian's smile twitches, his eyes creasing with affection. "He’ll understand."

He would. They were perfect for each other. Too perfect for jealousy; too happy for anything but acceptance.

"I..."

No use, the words won't come.

Dorian turns to me and covers my hands in his, bringing them up to kiss the fingers with delicate lips. He stares into my eyes intensely, his breath warming my skin.

My eyes fill with tears and I quickly embrace him to hide my fear.

We didn't need to speak. How long had it been since he'd discovered my longing? How many months since the subtle but painstakingly gentle rejection? We hadn't spoken then either. Words had no place amongst the fragments of my heart.

He held me until the sky began to lighten. He kissed my cheek, and then my lips, but let me be the one to step away.

 

oOo

 

Cassandra was practicing in the yard. I watched her dance and sweat and longed to kiss the moisture from her brow.

She saw me after a while and ceased her drills. Always careful around me, her Herald, always eager to lend her ear to my troubles.

I asked her to follow me, the yard was no place for this. My own feelings I knew I could hide from prying eyes, but my dearest seeker was as blatant as a copy of Swords and Shields.

Above the blacksmith’s forge was the perfect place, the ringing of steel below hiding our words, a privacy I knew she would soon appreciate.

"No nonsense," I said the moment we arrived. "I'm in love with you."

She blinked, her mouth parting as if to ask me to repeat, but pausing when she saw the earnest set of my jaw. Stubborn knew stubborn after all.

"I... don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything," I said, the sound of the smith's hammer ringing in my ears. "I know you don't... can't love me. But I've always been honest with you, right from the start. I don't want to die a liar."

"You're not going to die," she huffs in disapproval.

"We both know I might."

She sets her jaw, raising her noble chin as fine as any Orlesian courtier. "Very well, I accept your confession..." her eyes gentle and she becomes less hard. "You... know I cannot respond in kind."

I'd known, but it still dug into my gut like a rusted blade to hear the words.

"Unrequited love is all the rage, according to your favourite author," I said with a twisted grin.

She makes a disgusted noise in her throat, but smiles all the same.

"If I find myself in one of Varric's books, subject to a handsome paramour I shall be most displeased."

"Don't worry, Cassandra," I said, placing a solemnly reassuring hand upon her shoulder, "I assure you everything Varrik writes for me stays in my personal collection."

I've skipped away before she can lunge, laughing as she gives chase. The main hall is not so far away, and having denied the soldiers a spectacle it was only fair to offer some form of compensation.

 

oOo

 

 _Katoh_. The word plays on my lips but I did not let it fall. Tears, _good_ tears, streaming down my face. He had filled me so suddenly, so deep that I was nearly overwhelmed. Thoughts of tomorrow, even thoughts of the now were ripped away by the savagery of my taking, just as he’d known I'd needed.

"Bull... Kadan... _I love you_." I said it in my language, not his. To my knowledge those words did not exist in the Iron Bull's tongue. Could never exist.

He didn't stop, didn't acknowledge my words. Hard, fast, brutal. Just what I needed. Just what I _wanted_.

More tears fell, good tears still. Sobbing, messy tears of cathartic loss.

When his hot seed is spilt, Bull withdraws, a few more stinging blows upon my rear as reward for being so good for him. He flips me, mouth dipping down to suckle me and taste my juices as I grasp the blankets and whine. _I love you, I love you, I love you_.

He holds me after, washing my aching body with warm, scented water, spiked with elfroot. I sleep for a while and when I wake he is beside me still, massive chest moving rhythmically, eye closed and mouth parted.

I kiss his lips once, tracing my finger along their edge, then rise.

The dragon's tooth I set upon the mantle. I would wear its twin today over a heart far lighter than it had been for weeks, but I would not pretend that he would wear the other half. He was my Kadan; I held a piece of him in my heart, but the rest belonged always to The Iron Bull.

 

oOo

 

I'd thought about it for a long time. Agonised for weeks. A written confession perhaps, or a romantic stroll? How the hell did you use words - big important words - against a wordsmith, and not come off as a dribbling simpleton?

He was laughing with the others at the table, drink in one hand raised to embellish another huge lie of a tale. His laugh was infectious, his smile compelling. If he'd gotten the power of the maker instead of me we'd all have been truly fucked. Another exalted march would have been the least of the world’s concerns over the thousands that would have dashed themselves against the shores of Mount Tethras.

I joined in - who wouldn't? - until the night finally seduced us to our beds.

Varrik stayed in a room overlooking the courtyard, the better for watching the people. I waited until knocking didn't give away the desperately sad fact that I'd followed him here.

I take a deep breath as the door swung open.

"Inquisitor," says Varric with genuine pleasure. He looked down at what I held out to him; a thick square wrapped in waxed paper. “And it’s not even my birthday. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

I give a non-committal shrug and hand it over, affecting a nonchalant air as he carefully undoes the binding.

He doesn’t speak when he sees what’s inside, just stares at the hunk of metal – a plate too dented to be of any use to the smiths, a little larger than the palm of his hand. It was hard to work, days of ineffectual pounding with hammers had produced a fairly pitiful result. I hadn’t asked Dagna for help, she’d have asked too many questions.

“It’s meant to be—“

“—marigolds, yeah.”

I shift nervously. Varric is still staring. In all my scenarios I hadn’t anticipated silence. I’d rendered the wordsmith speechless.

“Anyway, it’s getting early,” I say, impressed that my voice is level and clear. “Almost time for the heroes to go marching off into the sunrise, right?”

Varric blinks and then chuckles weakly. “That’s about right. Big damn heroes, that’s us.” He hesitates for a moment and then takes a hipflask from its position inside his shirt, tucking the plate in its place in a manner that suggests it will remain there forever, next to his heart.

He holds up the flask with a winning smile.

“One more for the road?”


	2. Chapter 2

"What's a threesome?"

I'm halfway through a pint when he asks me, and this time I'm almost certain it's deliberate. Chocking and spluttering, I look into that oh-so-innocent face, with its pimples, and its buck teeth, and its fucking _adorable_ floppy hat.

Words fail me and so instead I just _think_ the explaination really loud, trying the way I'd learnt with him to add in the feeling of the idea and not just the words. I've gotten good at it these past months.

"Oh," he says and looks down at his own beer. He'd been trying it recently, another way to feel more human.

"Isn't that a bit complicated?" he asks.

I chuff a quick laugh and take another swig, clapping the boy on the back. "It was just a passing thought, I wasn't being serious."

" _It would solve the problem_ ," Cole echoes, " _He likes her, and he likes her too_ _. She likes them both, even if she doesn't know it yet... All three together, bodies and sweat_ _, legs and arms. Is it getting hot in here_?"

I cough, shifting uncomfortably in my suddenly too-warm seat, and busy myself with finding the bottom of my flagon.

"It wouldn't work," Cole says after a while, his simple voice dreamy, disconnected. "I don't like men. Not like that."

My heart lurches.

"Yeah, I know." I turn to look at him, deep into those grey-blue eyes and let myself _feel_.

"I know, Cole."

"...Oh."

I pull those feelings away quickly so as not to overwhelm. I'd gotten pretty good at that too, since he came along.

"Forget about it," I say and order another pint.

In his seat next to me Cole sighs and raises his hand.

"You always do."

 

oOo

 

"And _that_ is why my sister refuses to serve honey on yulesnight."

I laugh at the story's punchline and watch as the commander does the same. He's different tonight, here on the wall; less guarded, more forward. He hasn't called me Ser in at least five minutes, which is quite a record for a man who still refuses to use my first name.

We turn our attention back over the mountains, watching the stars compete with the moon for the night's sky. We've talked for hours, ever since I managed to drag him away from his desk and uneaten supper.

As our laughter trails off I look him in those stunning blue eyes and give him my best winning smile.

"So, your bunk or mine, Commander?"

His brow crinkles in confusion for a painfully-innocent moment and then raises in surprise, eyes widening in horror as his fair Ferelden skin is set aflame.

"Unless you fancy a quickie against the battlements?" I say over his adorable stammering.

"No! I mean... it's... I mean... I..." He collects himself, face straightening into virginial sincerity as he places a trembling hand upon my shoulder.

"Inquisitor, if I have ever given you reason to suspect that I held romantic intentions towards you..."

 _Romantic intentions?_ I can't help snorting, letting his hand support me as I lean forward against the mirth.

"Maker, Varrik was right; that was hilarious," I said, wiping my eyes from what I stubbornly thought of as tears of nothing but mirth.

Cullen's mouth dropped open and then he stepped back, becoming guarded.

"You were teasing me," he said flatly, the insult he felt heavy on his tongue.

I shook my head, becoming serious to match this wonderful boy. "Not at all. Varrik simply suggested a direct course of action. He also turned me down for you too, so don't feel too badly on that account."

"If you knew what I would say then why broach the subject at all," Cullen grumbled, his manner a perfect mirror of a grouching teen.

"Some things have to be said," I replied, taking his hand and placing my palm over it gently. "I'm sorry for embarrassing you, commander."

Cullen stiffened at the title, as rarely used by me as my name was by him: a drawing of lines behind which he could safely retreat.

"Cullen," he said, with a small, encouraging smile. "Call me Cullen, please."

"Cullen," I repeated the promise, wrapping the man in a tight embrace.

 

oOo

  

"You're going back to Antiva," I said, "once this is all over, I mean."

Josephine flashed me a quick, dark-eyed glance and then resumed her miniature inquisition of the Orlesian chocolate selection upon the table between us.

"I am considering it," she said carefully. "Now that my family's fortunes are once more improving – thanks entirely to your fine efforts, of course – I have a responsibility to manage them. Though I can do so from here, the accounts would benefit from a closer, more fastidious eye."

I thought of her sister with a fond smile. Evee was exactly what Josie would have become had responsibilities of her position not laced her into a stricter bodice.

"I'm sure you know that you have my blessing, when the time comes," I said, taking a sip of tea from Josie's best porcelain cup. She always gave me her favourite of the collection; it had a golden lip and handle, with little blue poseys painted all over. I always took the greatest care with it, knowing that unlike its owner, it could easily shatter in my graceless hands.

Josephine watched me for a moment. I knew that look; I had said something but she was interpreting what I had _not_ said. The Game was a delight for her, an intricate mystery that pleased her to unravel. Was she now wondering my response to hers to the unasked plea of: _"take me with you"_? Was she now pondering on the best way to reject a question not yet asked?

Luckily, I had come prepared.

"Antiva society is rife with gossip and intrigue, I'm sure you'll love it."

That usettled her somewhat. "Yes... I—"

"Not quite as bad as Orlais, perhaps."

"...No..."

"I remember the last time I took Blackwall to Val Royeaux," I said with a genuinely fond smile. "A noble walked into him and demanded satisfaction. You'd think Thom would have slain him there but he smoothed things over faster than I could draw my weapon. After five minutes they'd swapped names, and Thom was invited to tea after ten."

"Oh?" Josephine said weakly. "How... extrordinary." She looked away from me, taking up her cup and saucer in a way designed to busy the hands whilst the mind worked to catch up.

"It surprised me too," I said with a bright smile, "he truly can hold his own in the most testing of circumstances."

Josephine looked down at her tea, her eyes clouded with uncertainty.

I placed my hand upon the table, leaning in until I could smell the jasmine of her perfume.

"He truly is the most remarkable man."

Josephine sighed. She set her cup down beside my hand, the last two fingers bushing up and then resting upon mine. She looked at me then, with her beautiful eyes so filled with concern and compassion that my heart broke all over again.

"Yes," she said, he voice firm, her gaze unwavering, "He is."

 

oOo

 

I hated Bastien.

Vivienne was talking, bright and as scathingly witty as usual, but underneath, ever since that day in Val Royeaux, ran an undercurrent of melancholy I would never have guessed of my lady.

Bastien had taken that certainty from her, had weakened her armour and pierced her heart.

I hated him.

She spoke now, soft and assured. I listened not to her words but her tone and her manner. She sat easy tonight, upon her balcony beneath the heavens, her soul as bare as her head.

I had wondered at that for some time, why she would walk unadorned within Skyhold, but now I knew. Here, in her home she was the matriarch, the empress, the Mother most superior; there was no need to dress for a position she already rightfully owned. No Divine's crown would ever sit as well as nothing did upon my Lady's brow. In another time she could have been, _would_ have been, all those things, and I perhaps her most devoted consort.

And Bastien sought to Tear all that from her, make her a mistress, a widow.

"Do you think that we might...?" My words were as inelegantly spoken now as they had been the first time, a desperate, blurted question ripped from me in the face of her radiance.

If the question shocked her it was only for the briefest fraction of an instant. She turned her haughty gaze full on me, back straight, a pillar of metal unbent, tempered by grief into shining steel.

"Oh darling," she said, and in that word held not just the withering scorn of the past, but understanding, pity, and acceptance. "Don't be so tiresome."

I broke into a laugh, snortingly genuine and hearty, and not at all genteel. She did not join in, but she did smile, pleased with herself and I pleased to please her.

Damn that Bastien.

I hated him. Hated and loved him, the man that could melt this Iron Lady's heart and forge it into immovable steel.

 

oOo

  

"You really are the most insufferable man."

Solas looked up from his book, and if he was startled by my entrance and proclaimation it was expressed only in a raising of one thin brow.

"Good evening, Inquisitor."

"Insufferable," I growl, stalking forward and stopping a pace away from his desk. "Rude, selfish, self-important, insufferable egg!"

"I see." Solas sat back, placing his book down upon the table with one palm resting atop it.

I continued as I'd started, caring not a jot for those who craned their heads over the library's balconies to witness this spectacle first-hand. Dorian would have been first to move, if he wasn't currently arse-deep in Qunari. _Bastards._ If they could manage to set aside their aeon's-worth of differences, why not us?

"Arrogant, prideful, and badly dressed," I continued. My agitation had me striding the circle, hands flailing, eyes afire, looking everywhere but in his direction.

"An arrogant, prideful, badly-dressed... Egg!"

"So you have said," Solas replied, irritatingly calm.

"Shut up!"

"As you command, Inquisitor."

I let out a snarl of frustration, throwing up my hands in resignation.

A touch on my shoulder had me whirling, and there stood Solas.

We are alone, in a field of summer flowers waving softly in a gentle breeze, the sky above us is unmarked by the rift, the scent of putrefaction that lingered near it replaced by woodsmoke and wildflowers.

I glare at him, striken, my rage and words deserted.

Solas takes the half-step remaining between us and then I am in his embrace. Soft wool, a doggy, aetheric scent, and the sound of gentle breathing. My eyes fill with tears and my hands reach up to clutch his tunic, crushing it between my fingers as I sob. He simply holds me, obeying my order, until my tears are spent.

"Bastard," I whisper, without ire.

He nods, says nothing, but his arms do not retreat.

" _Ar lath, ma_ _vhenan_."

His grip tightens and then he releases me. I gaze into his deep, sorrowful eyes as he shakes his head. One hand rests upon my head, patricarchal and consolatory.

" _Ir arbelas._ _Mala suledin nadas, da'len_."

I pinch my lips together, fighting for strength as I nod. His hand slips from my head to rest before my grief-sore eyes and a moment later I awake.

My room is dark and cold, the fire burnt to ash. I can see to the eastern horizon, where the star-dimming sky begins to lighten.

Slowly I rise from the bed and begin to dress. My armour is heavy, but no longer chafes in the months since its first wearing. My hand takes my weapon in a firm grip, assured and unwavering. I step out into the balcony as the sun crests the mountains, and raise my eyes to the rift.


End file.
